heroina

Forms

hērōīna f (genitive hērōīnae); first declension^[1] The OLD and Georges head it with the Greek ending, hērōīnē (genitive hērōīnēs); hērōīna is the Latinised form.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἡρωΐνη (hērōḯnē, “heroine, demigoddess”),^[2][4][1] the feminine formed in Greek from ἥρως (hḗrōs, “hero”) with the suffix -ίνη (-ínē).^[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Propertius, who speaks of the women of the heroic age: in one elegy a girl is said to be more charming than the “Inachian heroines”, and in another he speaks of “beautiful heroines”.^[4][6][3]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed rare and poetic, used of the women of myth, demigoddesses and the wives and daughters of heroes.^[2][4] Lewis & Short name Cassandra, Andromache and Helen among the women Propertius means.^[4]

Through Latin it reached English as heroine, first in the sense of a demigoddess.^[5]

Timeline

• 57/46–12 BC – Propertius uses the singular and the plural of the women of myth.^[3][6][7]
• 1650s – English borrows it as heroine, “demigoddess”.^[5]
• 1660s – The English word comes to mean a woman of great courage.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A heroine, a woman of the heroic age in myth.^[2][4][6]
2. A demigoddess.^[4][3][1]

Related words

• hērōs
• hērōis
• English heroine

Usage notes

The Greek form hērōīnē and the Latinised hērōīna are both found.^[2][4] Compare hērōis, the more common word for a heroine.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de